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Not all EVs are Teslas, a Honda Prologue Review [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-17
This Diary is posted in the vein of (with apologies to Monty Python) ‘And now for something completely different!’. As with any review, the opinions expressed are mine, your mileage may vary.
Last August I wrote a Diary about our cross-country trek driving from SE Pennsylvania to SoCal to deliver an auto to our son and daughter-in-law. I mentioned in passing we were doing so because we had purchased a new 2024 Honda Prologue EV. Several folks asked in the Comments for our thoughts on the Prologue and, now that we’ve owned it for a number of months, I think we have enough information to post this review.
Overall, we like it. It isn’t truly a Honda, however, but a rebranded Chevy Blazer with what is touted as ‘Honda styling’. So it doesn’t look like a Blazer in a side-by-side match up but the guts are all GM. Which raises some interesting issues with understanding the systems in the car and with dealer servicing, as outlined below.
Performance wise, car seems good. ‘Mileage’, if one can use that term for an EV, is excellent, takes about an hour to recharge for every 10% reduction in battery power using a 240V outlet in our garage. Note that the Prologue is currently not compatible with Tesla Superchargers although an adapter to overcome that is supposed to be released in June. Can’t find anything regarding projected price of the adapter. Honda is supposedly cutting a deal with Tesla so Prologue owners can use the Supercharger network at no cost once the adapters become available.
The default limit of 80% full charge is more than adequate for us as we use it almost exclusively around town and for shorter drives. Longest drive so far has been a bit over 100 miles round-trip. Mrs. R did figure out how to reset the charge limit although it wasn’t easy or straight-forward finding that information.
The Shift knob takes some getting used to as it is more like a paddle shifter than a traditional shift lever. And the stalks on the steering column are arranged differently and have different functions than the other Hondas we’ve owned over the years but that’s neither good nor bad, just different. Remote Start function on the Key Fob is good even though the garage is detached and a good 75 feet from the Mud Room where we keep keys. Trying to Remote Start from the iPhone App, however, is hit ‘n miss.
Handling wise, plenty of power both around town and on a highway. Mrs. R especially likes the extra weight as it comes in around 3000 lbs., roughly half again as heavy as our CR-V Hybrid. We’ve had a lot of high wind days this Spring and she reports she’s never felt it get ‘blown around’ the way her previous (now residing in SoCal) CR-V did. And plenty of inside space for hauling stuff, be it groceries, bags of lawn-care products, or DIY project supplies. It is, after all, an SUV.
Also on the plus side, the Nav System is based on Google Maps rather than Garmin as in ‘real’ Hondas. A plus because Garmin based Honda Nav Systems have taken us on way too many backroad adventures across some very desolate parts of the Country when all we wanted was to get back on the Interstate after stopping at an interesting attraction. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had to chew up data on my iPhone using Google Maps to get us back on course after Garmin got us on to some deserted road with no other human within 10 miles.
And the outside cameras are excellent. There is even the ability to turn on the forward view camera so you can see how close the front bumper is to a building or parking space limit. Although it took a couple of weeks before Mrs. R figured out how to add the camera button to the main menu screen, it was worth the effort. And the ‘overhead’ view you get when the backup camera is engaged is an interesting feature.
After that, this is one weird vehicle. Mrs. R (primary driver) has spent hour, after hour, after hour perusing the Manuel, both paper and on-line, and reading Posts on FB User Groups trying to figure out how the damn thing works and what settings are best for how she drives. She has multiple ‘cheat sheets’ squirreled away in the car so she can change settings without searching through menu after menu trying to find the correct one.
Biggest quirk, it seems the electronic systems in the car reset themselves to what appear to be arbitrary configurations at random times with no discernible pattern as to logic or occurrence. Case-in-point, “Regenerative Braking”, wherein the Battery gets a small recharge every time the driver lifts their foot off the accelerator thus activating the brakes. The engage/disengage toggle shows on the master display screen in the middle of the dash, between the seats. That toggle is small, easy to mis-hit and the system occasionally ‘disengages’ by itself which means the car doesn’t brake when the driver lifts their foot off the accelerator as expected. We know the feature will self-disengage when the temperature drops below 32°F but it’s done so on enough days when the temperature wasn’t close to freezing overnight to be annoying, to say nothing about being a safety hazard as the driver expects the car to stop when their foot comes off the accelerator, but it doesn’t.
Then there is the Dealer’s knowledge and access to data. We’ve been buying or leasing and servicing our cars at the same local Honda Dealership for the last 34 years. That Dealership started out (circa 1920 after being a Farm Machinery dealer since the 1880s) selling and servicing GM branded vehicles and added a Honda franchise in the late 1960s. First time we walked into the place, sales guy pitched us a Pontiac even though we told him upfront we wanted a Honda Accord. But they divested the GM franchises and moved to a new location in 2009 becoming exclusively a Honda Dealership in the process. Consequently, the current Sales and Service staffs have no knowledge of nor access to GM expertise, parts, even on-line information. It’s like the dealership was only associated with GM a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Plus, I’m pretty sure ours was the first Prologue they actually delivered to a customer based on comments our Sales Rep made when we closed the deal.
As a result, the Dealership Staff hasn’t a clue how to answer questions regarding the Prologue. As an example, we couldn’t figure out the Valet Card, how to activate it, how to use it to unlock and move the car. Neither could the Dealership. Service Coordinator we talked to used to work at a GM dealership but even he couldn’t figure it out. Mrs. R finally found the answers in a FB Users Group Chat. Not sure what will happen if anything serious goes wrong with one of the various systems in this car and not looking forward to finding out. FB User Group snark says take it to a GM Dealer. At least I think it’s snark.
Bottom line? We’re glad we got an EV for all the environmental reasons. With a Honda CR-V Hybrid also in the garage, we never intended to use the Prologue for long distance travel. And the quirky nature of this GM/Honda crossbreed just reinforces that decision. We are retired so neither car gets extended use and we had to make a ‘house rule’ that we use only the Hybrid for weekly grocery shopping just to make sure it gets run on a regular basis.
We purchased a Prologue based on our long time, overwhelmingly positive, relationship with our local Honda Dealership. But given it’s not really a Honda, along with the oddities noted above, highly doubtful at this point that we’d buy another one. Although Honda is making a (limited number of?) 2025 Prologues that are essentially the same as the 2024 model, there are still lots of rumors about Honda not going forward with the Prologue. Which makes recommending it to others difficult. If, like us, you really want an all-electric Honda and want to get one before the Tariff stuff hits the MSRP, consider leasing a Prologue so you can upgrade a few years down the road if Honda really does pull the plug on the Prologue (yeah, I know that’s a pun). Otherwise, our advice is to wait and see what Honda does developing its own EV or look at other options.
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